How to Be Seen, Known, and Valued with Dr. Sarabeth Berk Bickerton

If you've ever felt hard to explain who you are o what you do this episode is for you. Dr. Sarabeth Berk Bickerton breaks down why professional identity is complex, and how to finally articulate your full value. Jill Griffin and Dr. Sarabeth Berk Bickerton discuss: 

• Why capable professionals struggle to explain who they are even when they know they bring real value
• How job titles flatten your identity and leave others seeing only part of what you offer
• A research-backed framework to describe yourself beyond roles, skills, and keywords

Guest bio: 

Dr. Sarabeth Berk Bickerton is a professional identity researcher, TEDx speaker, and author of More Than My Title, helps mid-career professionals articulate who they are beyond job titles and be fully seen at work.

Mentioned on the show: 

Listen:  The Great Reassessment: Preparing Your Mindset, Managing Perfectionism, Ageism, and the New Midlife Crisis

Read: Jill's Forbes.com article on grieving lost opportunties

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Background

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey everyone, I'm Gil Griffin, the host of the Career Refresh, and today I have Dr. Sarah Beth Burke Bickerton. She is a returning guest. And for anyone who has listened before, you remember her from her previous books, uh, More Than My Title. Today we are talking to Sarah Beth. She is a professional identity researcher and she is the leading expert on hybrid professionals. Hello, anyone can recognize that or recognize themselves in that. She is a TEDx speaker. And as I said, she is the author of the very fabulous More Than My Title. And she has a forthcoming book, Seen, Known, and Valued, which is where she directs mid-career professionals to articulate who they are beyond job titles, especially in this complex, multidimensional careers that they are in. And they often feel misunderstood in the workforce. Her work challenges outdated narratives about career fit. We've all heard that before, and offers research-backed methodology for being seen, known, and valued for who you are, not just what you do. She is based in Boulder, Colorado, and she can be found hiking, biking, skiing with her husband and sons. And I am here to welcome her. So welcome, Sarah Beth. It's really good to have you back. It is a pleasure to be back. Thank you for having me. So take us through a little bit of the evolution. If any of our listeners or viewers did not um listen to the first episode or haven't had a chance to read your first book, take us a little bit through the highlights of the first book, and then that will help us get into where we're taking the conversation into how to be seen, known, and valued as a multidimensional professional.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Absolutely. I love that. I would say that more than my title really came out of a professional identity crisis I was having over a decade ago. I was back in grad school trying to redefine my career path. I didn't want to be an art teacher anymore. I thought I was going into education to transform K-12 curriculum. But instead, I found myself wondering, who am I? I have so many different identities. I don't know how to make sense of myself. I have training as an artist. Now I'm becoming a researcher. I also love design. I'm also an educator. Like I'm too many things. And so that what do you do question was plaguing me. And lo and behold, while I was in grad school, I started learning about intersectionality. And I thought, well, who am I at the intersection of my multiple professional identities? And I drew a Venn diagram. And I had never thought about the overlapping spaces between the different identities I wear. And that was the first time I gave myself permission

From Identity Crisis To Hybrid Work

SPEAKER_01 2:45

to say, what if I am combining and weaving and blending identities together? That's why I can't express there. There's no name for what this is. And that was my breakthrough idea that I'm actually a hybrid of all of these professional identities. And when I slowly started introducing that concept to friends and fellow students, they loved it. They got it. They said, that makes so much sense. And a lot of them started using that language themselves.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

And they were identifying. They were like, that's me. They get it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

So that was like my validation of wait a second, this isn't just a crazy idea I'm having. There's something here. And that became my dissertation. And then eventually I knew I wanted to turn into a book. So more than my title answers that question of who am I when I wear a lot of hats and I'm a jack of all trades and I don't fit into a box. And then in the last five years, more than my title has blossomed into courses and coaching and speaking and all these beautiful things I never predicted. But the the researcher in me kept hearing the same follow-on question, which was this people would say, now that you've helped me learn who I am as my true professional identity, not just my job title, where do I fit in the workforce? Yeah. Because your professional identity is what you call yourself. I call myself a creative disruptor and a professional identity researcher. Well, those aren't job fields, those aren't things people are hiring for. And so this idea of fit, where do I fit just kept coming up, coming up. And I was like, I feel that too. But then when people explain what they mean by fit, they go, I just want to be understood. I want to feel seen and valued by my boss, by my colleagues, by my employer. And so the ideas of seen, known, and valued actually contrast their opposite of fitting in, because being seen, known, and valued is about belonging and being accepted for who you are. So that's what's led me on this journey. It's been a natural evolution of studying the phenomenon, the lived experience of what people are dealing with, but we don't pay attention to the language we're using. And that's my research.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I have so many questions just from that. So the first question I would say is why do you think many professionals struggle to explain who they are? Right. And, you know, even when they know they're driving value and they're bringing value to the organization, why do you think they struggle so much with explaining that?

SPEAKER_01 5:17

Okay. I'm going to answer this question with the question back to you. Okay. So putting you on the spot cold here, Jill, who are you in your work beside your job title?

SPEAKER_00 5:27

Which, I mean, and that I would say, which Jill, right? Um, I had this personal experience. I am a strategist by trade. I spent the bulk of my careers in small business startups and corporate as a strategist. I'm also a functional medicine practitioner. I'm also an exec, I've been a certified coach for almost 20 years. How does all that fit into what I'm delivering? So, sure, as a strategist, if you throw me on a health assignment, well, they go, oh, okay, we can use all that information that she has. But then what about the packed

Why Self-Description Feels Impossible

SPEAKER_00 6:01

part about, oh, I'm also a traumatic brain injury survivor? And how does my lived experience through that? And then all the work I've done on mindset come into a situation. So I would probably, if I was just going back to my former self, I would probably, depending on the scenario, I would try to do a quick read and then decide who I should be in this moment. And in this moment, hmm, I want you to hire me for a head of strategy job. You know what? I'm gonna hold the other things aside. I'm only gonna focus on that I'm the head of strategy. And that, you know, I might say to you, you know what, while you're running the company, Miss CEO, I am the person who understands the marketplace, the technology, the platform, the consumer. And I also understand what's gonna motivate your staff. So while you're focusing on that, that's what I'm gonna be doing. That's the value I would bring. But I've also left 90% of me off the table in the conversation. So back to you. Tell me, why do I struggle, Sarah?

SPEAKER_01 7:00

For for all the listeners, this was like the best example because what you did, Jill, is quintessential. It's it's very typical of what most people do. You don't have a succinct response because there's too much to say. There's sort of this list of all kinds of different attributes that start to arise. Um, it's kind of messy, it's unrehearsed. And so, my summary of all this is you've never been trained or done the self-reflection to realize how do I see myself in my work? Who am I and how do I want to present that? So the biggest tool and takeaway here is none of us are being trained on how to reflect on and then communicate our true professional identity, which needs to be more unique than just generic labels. So, saying you're a strategist and um, you know, a supporter in these different ways to companies is still just kind of vanilla. It's the jargon we all just lean on.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Yeah, does it make me special? There's a lot of talented strategists out there.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Right. And so to give a quick story, I was working with a woman, she was a senior leader in a medical company, and her title was Head of Medical Excellence. Well, that's a great title.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

I was just gonna say, but we like the science excellence.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

Exactly. She's like, my colleagues don't really know. I'm trying to get promotions and advance my career, but there's no, you know, organizational uh hierarchy on where this path takes me. So she worked with me, and over time we realized she's really good at identifying partnerships. She constantly sees gaps in her true professional identity and who she's really always been. It's not just in this one role, it cuts across different jobs and different titles. She is the opportunity translator. That was how she finally realized what her value is and how to name it, and then mapped her impact, her contributions, her performance metrics, all aligned into that bigger umbrella of her identity.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

So just on that, what's also really interesting about this um example you're giving is that medical excellence could be interpreted as the craft of uh being a medical professional. But the way you just described it to me, because about opportunity and partnerships, it actually is closer to revenue. It's actually closer to making sure, and that's the way I'm interpreting it, right? It's actually closer to making sure that we're making sure that the medical excellence in the nooks and crannies are in all these areas that are delivering um within partnerships and opportunities. Is that, am I reading that correctly?

SPEAKER_01 9:48

For her situation, actually, yeah. She was definitely more on the business side, but she had a ton of medical training. So she was that catalyst in between. Again, she's a hybrid. She defies one silo. Right. Right. And so this is the intense self-reflection I think most of us are craving, but we don't know where to start and what the tools are of how do I name all the different bits and pieces, skills, attributes, whether you've done a Myers-Briggs or a DIS, like we're constantly collecting understanding about our personality and our skills and our talents, but we still don't know what makes us us and why is that a specific reason for someone to hire us?

SPEAKER_00 10:27

Right. So, what would you say to someone who's listening? You know, they're on the edge of their seat, they're getting their notes up, or they're grabbing pen and paper. What's something they can do just this week to start to unpack some of this?

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Okay, I'm gonna start with my three career power questions, but these are still pretty high level, just as the framework of what the reflection requires. The first question is who are you in your work besides your job title? So what would you call yourself? The second is what does that mean? What's a short definition? And the third is what makes you feel seen, known, and valued for that? Those are the three questions I think everybody's longing to be able to define. But none of us have clearly, succinctly been asked this is what you're trying to figure out. And so that's what my process and tools are designed around. The first question, who are you, is a whole series of things of baselining what are all the professional identities you currently possess. I force people to make a brainstorm list of 50

Three Questions To Start Clarity

SPEAKER_01 11:33

identities at least, to just start putting them on paper to say, wow, I'm a mentor, I'm an advocate, I'm a circus leader, I'm a strategist. Like when you start to see these identities, and identities are nouns, people forget. They start saying, Oh, I'm a wonderful, uh, collaborative person, and I love problem solving. Like those are qualities, not identities. So the brainstorm would be the first part. And then the second level of that is narrowing to what I call your primary ones. The ones you use the most, you want to be known for. They are your greatest areas of expertise. And you'd really miss them if someone said, Jill, I'm sorry, you can't be the strategist in this role. You'd be like, what are you talking about? That's like critical. Yeah, right. Yeah. And so just even that part of the process helps people get more clarity. But for people that are hybrid, which it's hard to measure how many people in the workforce are hybrid. I have three levels of identity. You're either singular, multiple, or hybrid.

unknown 12:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

And you can be in any of those buckets. They all matter, but they all require different levels of clarity.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

Okay. Tell me more.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

Tell you more. So my first book talked about that notion that we're stuck in a paradigm of experts and generalists. You have to be an either-or. And that's where I struggled. I'm like, I'm the both and what do I do? And as I've interviewed people, studied them, researched this, I've learned there are three these three types. So singularity is when you're like, I am truly just a medical professional or just a chemical engineer. Like, that is how I see myself. I'm one hat. Multiplicity is where you're the jack of all trades, a polymath, a multi-hyphenate. You're like, I am this and this and this and this and this. But those things never connect. They're all separate, they're distinct. You use them one at a time. So the yoga teacher who's also the marketing professional. But the hybrid, which is the third type, works at the intersection. They are a Venn diagram. And that's where it really gets hard because you're like, how do I make sense of an identity that is

Singular Multiple And Hybrid Explained

SPEAKER_01 13:50

between categories that's never been named? And I ask people to work on inventing and naming themselves. Usually we find it through stories of how you do your work. And times when you're just in that flow and these identities are all showing up simultaneously. You'll notice that themes start emerging, patterns are arising, there's commonalities across the stories. And that's for me how I saw I'm a creative disruptor. Or this other woman, how she's the opportunity translator. There is the consistent pattern of constantly spotting opportunities and constantly naming them and translating them. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

So if I was going on a job interview and um let's pretend the example you just gave, the opportunity translator. Um, and again, assuming you have permission to talk about some of the examples around this um this experience for this woman. Prior to being the head of medical excellence and the opportunity translator, I'm gonna guess that she had some training either in classic business or finance or uh sales, perhaps. Am I accurate on any of that?

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Ironically, I think it was actually more on the science side. She was working in the lab, she was doing like medical translation work. Um it was pretty heavy in bioscience. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

But if she was going on an interview today for a job, the odds are the title is not going to be opportunity translator. Correct. It's probably also not going to be head of medical excellence. Um, it could be strategic partnerships. It could be something more on the scientific side of things. But how would you suggest she approaches the conversation to know which side of her she should bring forward or to apply? Like she's applying, she's gonna hit the you know, the narrowness of a job description or um, you know, I would imagine at her level they're not posting for that, right? That's probably a networked in conversation, like the the hidden job market, as we say. So many great observations. Yeah, how would you suggest she approaches continuing to move forward in that conversation? Because she is so many of these different things.

SPEAKER_01 16:06

Yeah, it there's a few really simple tools. So one is the double intro. We are constantly navigating how systems, employers, the workforce sees the talent pool, what they're looking for, what they need. So they might call someone, we need an SVP of strategy. Yep. And that's that's for their organizational structure. So you can use a double intro and say, my title has been head of medical excellence, but in that role, I see myself as the opportunity translator. Or I know I'd be great as SVP of strategy because I am the opportunity translator in all of these past roles. And let me explain why that matters to you. So it's using the formal title plus the professional identity of how you want to be seen. So they start making that connection back to you. Another tool that's really simple is saying, I work at the intersections of A, B, and C. So when you know those three, four of the most primary areas, strategy for you, jail, um, leadership, things like that, you can help

Interview Language That Actually Lands

SPEAKER_01 17:15

us understand there's a space in between. I'm at the intersection of these. But you don't have to define what that space is. You're just naming I'm at the intersection. Those are game changing. And if you start Google searching, work at the intersection of I'm finding that language more and more in job descriptions, in people's web pages, in bios. Okay, it is a becoming a phrase to signal I'm not categorized, categorizable.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

Okay. Okay. I I I mean, I like that, but I think it does if we put on the realities of again, the example I was giving with someone interviewing, it means, and my long-term listeners know this, it means you have to network in because the job that's posted or the job that's circulated is going to be a narrow description. So, yes, apply. And then you're going to have to work your network and network your way in to start having the conversation so that they would understand that someone who comes from a science background who's going for, you know, a kind of uh opportunities and strategic partnerships, if that's the example, that they're going to have to be broader and have that conversation. So I can see again where this identity work is really important. Because think about it. The example I would give is like, let's go back to marketing. Marketing, I mean, one of the broadest titles, right? What part of marketing? Is it consumer facing? Is it uh business facing? Is it enterprise, right? Is it small business, right? You have layers like that. And then of course, within the marketing discipline. So if you were to tell me, hey, Jill, I'm looking for a senior leadership role in marketing, I can't do anything with that. I mean, I could, right? But it's not gonna be really effective. I'm gonna need to understand what is it about who you are in marketing so that I know to introduce you to the right person. Because if it's email marketing and that's not what the job is, well, then I need to be able to effectively explain that better. So I can see again where this identity piece comes in because it's gonna help me as the person who's gonna help you network be able to more effectively explain what you do.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

Absolutely, right? Oh my gosh. And we are playing multiple games at the same time. We're playing the computer vision versus the human vision. And I you mentioned this earlier, like top of funnel is you're looking at the landscape of job boards and job posting and job descriptions, and it's all very mechanical. And you have to look like what they're searching for and keywords and all this language. So there is a mirroring side. However, I do believe if you know at least what your two, three, or four parts of your Venn diagram are, you can start searching based on those categories to find companies that are also using those spaces. They just might not be saying it in the way you're saying it, like a company that wants strategy, leadership, design, and healthcare. And you're like, okay, that's got a sense of a direction that might be right for me. So searching based on that helps you maybe surface companies and opportunities you weren't looking for if you're just narrowly searching on titles. Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

And if I am the person doing the hiring, what recommendation would you give to either the HR person who's writing the job description, the executive recruiter who's then translating that, or the hiring manager? What what what advice would you give to them as they're looking for their candidate, knowing that this is such this intersectionality is so important?

SPEAKER_01 20:57

Okay. I'm I'm gonna push you and your listeners' minds for a second, because this topic has been really on the top of my mind.

SPEAKER_00 21:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

We are in a paradigm of AI where recruiters and managers and job seekers are both using it to write job descriptions and write the resumes, and it's just AI versus AI. Uh-huh. And it's all slop. And it's all slop. It's all the same. And the issue is that AI has not been trained to understand people that defy categorization, are multi-hyphenate, bring complexity to the table that is actually high value, but doesn't fit neatly into box. I call this sorting versus seeing. And this is part of my new, my new book. And this is a bigger systems issue that needs to be solved because we are going to keep reducing the workforce into very generic bland descriptions of we need X and person sounds like Y, but that doesn't really reflect the truth of either side. Right, right. And and so that problem. Needs to get solved first and foremost because we're just

AI Hiring And The Sorting Trap

SPEAKER_01 22:02

trapped in it. I think that's why people are frustrated on both sides of the equation. But let's eliminate for a moment that AI was not writing the job descriptions or reading the resume. Let's pretend we're just strictly humans doing human hiring. If I'm a manager and I'm writing a job description, I want to first be really clear what kind of talent do I need? Do I need someone who's singular, multiple, or hybrid? Because those are different ways people are oriented in their work. Singular, someone just wants to stay in one lane, focus really tightly. The multiple is someone that can jump around into different pots. And the hybrid is someone who's cross-disciplinary, interdisciplinary, moving between silos, translating complexity. So I'm going to write that job description to be clear of which type of professional identity I need. And so therefore, as a job seeker, I can look for that both and language, or we need someone who's at the intersection of strategy, leadership, and design. And I've I've seen these job postings. So that is kind of part one, just to kind of cut the fluff and make sure you're feeling like this role is going to represent the kind of person you are.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

But then I think the interview is where you really have to explain why you're unique, why your professional identity brings something to the table that a different professional doesn't. So case in point, since we're talking about applicants, if we had 10 people that were all going for a project manager job, just really simple, or a senior project manager or something, they all, let's pretend they all have similar pedigrees, similar credentials, similar degrees. Like on paper, these people really look the same. But to each of them during hiring, I say, how do you see yourself in your work besides just being the project manager?

unknown 23:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

Person one says, I'm really the moment architect. I help study blank dee blank. They define what that means to them. Person two says, I'm really the opportunity translator. I do XYZ. So each person demonstrates how they see themselves in their work and why that matters to this particular role. That changes the narrative. That is you making sense of your own identity and story and what you're going to do that is not easily distinguished on paper.

SPEAKER_00 24:28

Okay. So I guess what I'm taking away from this is that there's still the systems in which we need to work within because everybody is using, as you said, AI is speaking to AI. But this is really going back to, I mean, it's kind of the purpose of the next book, right? How to be seen, known, and valued. It's really making sure that not only are you doing that for yourself, but in your relationship building, you also have to offer that to others. How are they seen, known, and valued? And in order to be getting jobs that are not entry-level or very um singular discipline opportunities, it's going to be based on relationships and relationship building.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

Relationship building, and and you, I have a huge smile on my face because you just said a point that's so perfect, and it's exactly what I talked about in my book. There are three levels to this career-belonging concept I'm working on. Level one is how do you see yourself and how do you want to be seen, known, and valued? But level two is how do others see, know, and value you? So how are they reflecting that back? That's based on your actions, based on how you talk about yourself. It's based on all of these intangible factors that we infer to understand who someone is. Because I know my boss doesn't get me when they say, Oh, here's Sarah Beth. She's our innovation strategist. I'm like, no, I'm I'm really this other thing. Like, she doesn't get me. Right. That's the disconnect. And the third layer is being seen, known, and valued by something greater than yourself. We often forget that we're doing something in the world that might be part of a movement or community or a higher power or some social effort. And if you're not connecting to all three of those, yourself, others, and something greater,

Career Belonging At Three Levels

SPEAKER_01 26:19

you haven't fully fulfilled your career path.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

All right. I mean, we almost just want to sit with that for a minute or two and really think through what does that mean for me, especially when then we layer on pressures within the results that we need to create. Like if we're not looking for a job but we're in a job, right? And I want to get promoted. There's pressures within my organization, within my business unit. There may be pressures at home. There's the reality of sort of the world and what's going on at a global scale. And if you're not coming back to how do I want to be seen, known, and valued? How do I want to show up? What's my connection with some of my universal thought, whether that is a higher power or just the connection of that we're all humans and um there's a conventional wisdom. If we're not coming back to something like that, that's what's going to separate us from the AI machines, is that human essence. Am I absolutely understanding? Okay, I just want to make sure that you and I are tracking on the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

That's what I thought. But and this, the, the scene known value book has some philosophical sides to it. It's not a clear-cut career professional development book. Because one of the core issues is what do we even mean by career anymore? That term has become loaded. A lot of people don't even disagree or don't even agree on a definition. And so I've really started to see there's a little C career and a big C career. And sometimes we're trying to do both in the same sentence. And your little C career is about those traditional things we've been taught, we've inherited. It is about a ladder, it's about a path, it's about making money, it's about hitting metrics. But your big C career is about your own self-definition of what is success. What are you trying to achieve? Why are you even working? And moving from little C to big C is a process, it's an inner journey. It's also about how you present yourself to the world and how the world sees you back. Yep. But these are the bigger things I see people talking about in the workforce today that they don't want to just fit into boxes. They don't want to be pigeonholed. Right, right. They want to feel fulfilled and have purpose. How do they have all? How do they how do you do this today? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

Yeah. And I see that I have slightly different language, but I see that as like you can

Little C Versus Big C Career

SPEAKER_00 28:41

have a job, a career strategy, and a purpose. And it's not linear. And at different points, you may pop in and out of those things, but don't fool yourself and don't think that you need to not think you have to think about those things, right? I I might be in a job because if our listeners are US-based, most of us are getting our health care through our employment. So I also need money to support my lifestyle and my, you know, family, but I also need the health care that comes along with it. And sometimes we're in a job that it's good enough, right? I don't actually want to get promoted right now. I have a young child at home. I have an aging parent. Um, I have other interests. I'm training, you know, for a triathlon. And I just want a job that gives me some intellectual stimulation that I can feel like I'm in contribution, but I'm also getting the financial reward and the healthcare reward. That's a job. But then we move into a career strategy where there are other points in our career and our title may never change. We may still be in the same quote job. But then all of a sudden, those situations have solved for themselves. And now you're like, you know what? Where do I want to be in contribution at a different world? How do I want to be thinking about what is my overall well-being and how does that come into my career? And who do I want to be as a leader and what's my identity in this situation? And then of course there's purpose-driven work, which maybe it can thread through all of it, or maybe that's yet another. I mean, I would argue that I'm in the part of my career where I'm in my purpose-driven work, right? Whereas other points I was in a more of a career strategy. What's the strategy of what I'm doing next? And how am I thinking about that promotion? Who are the partners I'm making? What am I doing? Whereas now it's how am I of maximum service to as many people as possible so that we are making work work for more people. Simple. I mean, to me, that's simple, not easy, but simple. But I like the way that you are thinking about this as small C career, big C career, and that this idea that it's not an endpoint. It's interchangeable as you grow as an individual, as your circumlife circumstances change as you may be weaving in and out of these things. And it's not just about career fit. Um it's not static.

SPEAKER_01 30:46

And we've got these old, old ideas that are not part of how today's world works. And I think we're some of the first generations hitting these friction points. The industrial age is over, knowledge work is changing, nobody knows what's next exactly, but we know the current systems aren't serving us. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

All right, my final question for you. If I am a leader within an organization, how can I, and I know the book is coming out shortly, but how can I apply this scene known and valued into some of our overall corporate philosophy, right? Again, it is a US-based conversation, but we've had a lot of conversations about um, we've had a lot of conversations about career, we've had a lot of conversations about uh diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. A lot of organizations are understanding that shifting into an inclusion and belonging um is some of the language that you know fits better for them, who they are culturally. So if I'm within those environments, how am I taking something like seen, known, and valued and pushing it through some of those internal initiatives?

SPEAKER_01 31:52

Oh, great final question. My hallmark tool in the book is the career belonging matrix. It's a three by three grid. The rows are seen, known, valued, and the columns are by self, by others, and by something greater than yourself. And one little side note here: career belonging is bigger than workplace belonging or team belonging or organizational belonging because we need to know who we are regardless. Like if you're no longer with that company or team, you still have a career, you still have a professional identity. And a lot of people go through a grieving process when they're laid off or move on. Yeah. But I think in the workplace, we can use this three by three grid to have great conversations, to take a moment to say, hey, Jill, if you were to fill out this three by three grid, how you see yourself, how you want others to see you, how you feel seen by something greater, what would you put in each box? And then share that either in learning and development conversations, in professional development plans. It could even be part of performance and

The Career Belonging Matrix For Leaders

SPEAKER_01 33:00

an advancement, where you and your manager, your manager starts to see you the way you want to be seen, because for the first time you've written it down, it's documented, it's a conversation and a dialogue instead of an assumption. Right. We think too often people should just know who we are and get us and understand us. And that's why we don't feel seen, known, and valued. So I think this three by three is really just the basic way to open conversations on how each member of your team wants to be seen, known, and valued. And if they don't know and don't have those answers, amazing. This is where you start. Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:38

It's the opportunity to do this work. Yes. Exactly. And when is the book coming out? In late May. Okay. So this episode will be out. When this episode is out, the book will be out. So we'll have all the information in the show notes so people can get access to it. Sarah, thank you so much for sharing this. Um again, I've loved your work. I've been a fan of your work. I've also used your work in my own evolution too, especially around more than my title when I first was building. I mean, it was 10 years ago, but some of your initial concepts when I first building it was like, who am I gonna be post-corporate strategy girl? You know, and I really appreciate the work that you've continued to put out there in the world. If you have questions, you know, you email us at hello at JillGriffinCoaching.com. We will get them to Sarah Beth. She will answer them. I already know she'll come back and answer them if we want to do a QA with her. Um, I know that she would appreciate that also because she is obviously wanting to put this work and making sure that you are all seen, known, and valued in your lives. I appreciate you. Thank you all for being here. And remember, in addition to being intentional, always, always, always be kind. I'll see you soon. Thanks.

SPEAKER_01 34:45

Thank you, Jill.